Back Issues: "Uncharted" #1-6 (2011-2012)

Nathan Drake. Adventurer. Rogue. Treasure hunter. Charmer. Guilt-free mass murderer. Though the “Uncharted” game series has remained incredibly popular throughout the last 9 years, it’s easy to forget about DC’s fantastic miniseries from a few years back.

Issue #1 cover. Click to enlarge.

Set sometime before the events of the second game, “Uncharted” (no subtitle) is written by Joshua Williamson (“RoboCop”, “Nailbiter”, “Predator: Fire and Stone”) and drawn by Sergio Sandoval (don’t think we’ve ever featured any of his work, but the name definitely sounds familiar). Unlike many tie-in comics, Williamson’s and Sandoval’s book tells a complete, self-contained story that could easily be adapted into an “Uncharted 1.5” game.

​This time around Nate and Sully are looking for the famous Amber Room, lost after the second World War. This would be a pretty hard task, but fortunately our heroes have a clue – the flight journal of pilot Richard Evelyn Byrd, who helped hide the Room. And of course, they have the journal because some people paid Nathan and Sully to retrieve it. What those people didn’t know, is that they’re gonna have to compete with our protagonists to get the Amber Room.

See? This is classic Uncharted! People paid them fair and square to get this journal, and Drake and Sully will double-cross them right the fuck out for the sake of having an adventure. How many times did this happen in the series, without us even batting an eye? I love Uncharted.

Back to the plot. The Amber Room isn’t the only thing the journal describes. Once Nate decodes it, we learn that old Byrd took the mythical treasure to the North Pole, where he discovered an underground city, complete with weird smoke “god” beings and its own sun. This only sounds weird and unlikely to somebody who never played any of the games, since that’s pretty much what all treasures come with (that’s not a slight to Williamson, though – none of it seems repetitive in the book, and before Uncharted 3 none of this were really tropes in the series).

He wants to kill them, Sully. DUH.

​During the adventure we also get to see Chloe and Flynn (in the franchise’s timeline, this is the first time we see them and we also get to see how Nate first met Chloe), which should please the game fans. Throughout the story there’s a lot of classic Indiana Jones-like ancient mystery solving, some supernatural elements, high adventure and plenty of action with all sorts of soldiers and hired guns. Spoiler: they all get KILLED. If you know Drake, you know that he doesn’t even consider mercenaries and bodyguards human. He kills at least several thousand of them in all the games, while making jokes that we laugh along to. Man, I love Uncharted.

Williamson’s story features all the elements an Uncharted comic should have and the characterization of our heroes matches perfectly with what we know about them from the games. The writer really did his homework and it shows. It’s a pleasure to read, and it’s also impossible not to hear the voice actors from the games while reading the dialog in this book. A+ job.​

Some nice action shots!

Sergio Sandoval also handles his duties with flair and accuracy to the source material. He gets to draw a lot of interesting stuff – planes, cars, boats, shoot outs, ancient cities and more – and it all looks great. Just the way it should.

This comic is a perfect companion to the Uncharted quadrilogy of games. If you love the games, I highly recommend looking for this series.

Have you read this miniseries? What did you think of it? Exactly how many poor, hard-working mercenaries does Drake kill in the franchise? Let us know in the comments!